Sunday, November 16, 2008

From The Weekend That Was

Georgia 17, Auburn 13Here's a great example of how dysfunctional Auburn's offense is. Mario Fannin had a 35 yard touchdown run that gave Auburn the lead with 11:05 left in the game (and he had a 52 yard touchdown reception in the first quarter). In the two Auburn possessions after his touchdown run, do you know how many times he touched the ball? Zero. Instead, Ben Tate got four carries, which he turned into a spectacular seven yards. For the game, Tate had 14 carries for 37 yards (2.6 yds/carry) and Fannin had 8 carries for 59 yards (7.4 yds/carry).

Maybe Fannin was hurt or maybe he expressed his longing for the return of Tony Franklin because those are the only two reasons I can see why he wasn't in the game on the last two possessions. And I don't think he was hurt because Tuberville said after the game they went with Tate because they felt like he was running the ball better. That explanation makes as much sense as firing your first year offensive coordinator six games into the season. Strange things are afoot in Auburn, Alabama. Amazingly, Auburn still has a chance to go to a bowl game if they upset Alabama in two weeks.

Ole Miss 59, Former Directional School 0Bowl eligible. Since 2003, that was a phrase as common to the Rebels as David Cutcliffe playing deserving underclassmen and Ed Orgeron not watching recruiting tapes and refraining from using some variation of the word "compete." Psychologically, this is an enormous boost for fans of and everyone in the Ole Miss program. We're one year removed from winning ZERO SEC GAMES and spent the past four years living in football hell. Seriously, one year ago all we could hope for was a win over State to avoid losing every conference game. Now, I can't really put into words what it means to be spending late December or early January looking forward to a bowl game and not wondering how many recruits we're going to lose between the Egg Bowl and February. It's sort of like Andy Dufresne crawling through 500 yards of shit-smelling foulness to his freedom. Except we crawled around for four miserable years.

Florida 56, South Carolina 6Okay, I was a little off on this one. Not only was it not close, South Carolina wasn't even remotely competitive. I said the GarciMelley probably couldn't produce enough points for South Carolina to win, but I didn't anticipate they wouldn't have a pulse. I haven't seen quarterbacks that terrified since 2005 when Ethan Flatt stared across the line at LSU's defensive front four.

As for Florida, I referred to them last week as an F5 tornado. I was wrong. They're like an F5 tornado that sprays fire, Tomahawk cruise missiles and a general cloud of death at anything in its path. What they're doing right now is something I've never seen or will likely ever see again. It's sort of like what the Patriots did early last season in the NFL, but with more death and burning of villages. 38-7, 51-21, 63-5, 49-10, 42-14 and 56-6. Those are their scores since they lost to Ole Miss. That's six conference games and three top 25 teams. I'm not even mad, that's amazing.

But of course, 31-30 still stands.

Alabama 32, Mississippi State 7As I watched part of this game, I kept thinking about how cold it must have been sitting in the upper deck in Tuscaloosa. When I saw Sylvester Croom on the field dressed like he was about to face a Siberian winter, I could only assume the people up top were experiencing a cold even Jack Daniels couldn't break. Nor could he add any entertainment value to the State offense. For State fans there, it was probably a toss up on whether the cold or their offense was more brutal.

Alabama was just about as ugly as predicted, but they could afford to be when facing a State offense that sputtered its way to 167 total yards. I expect Alabama will play a game almost exactly like this one in two weeks when they try to end their losing streak to Auburn.

Vanderbilt 31, Kentucky 24I looked for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on Saturday night, but didn't see them. Yet. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Vandy is going to a bowl. I just hope they don't get destroyed playing a C-USA team. But seriously, be on the lookout for these guys:

LSU 40, Troy 31Troy lead 31-3 with 11:13 to play in the third quarter and 31-10 going into the fourth. Then, they showed their Sun Belt colors and promptly surrendered 30 points in the fourth quarter. The only thing more amazing than giving up 30 points in the fourth quarter is Jarrett Lee had his SEVENTH interception returned for a touchdown this season. Lee, who was booed and benched in the first half, now has 15 interceptions on the year and same confidence the Chicago Cubs have displayed over the past 100 years. He was one more soul-crushing interception return for a touchdown away from dropping out of school and applying for Ryan Leaf's now-vacant coaching position at that small college in Texas.